DIY Batman Carved Art

Okay friends, this post has been a long time coming, but I just never seem to get around to it. Last year, you may or may not remember, I created a Batman nursery for my nephew. I am not a real “theme” kinda gal, so I wanted to create a piece of art that would be Batman themed, but still versatile enough that it could be used anywhere (like a mancave) and that a child wouldn’t outgrow one day. So during one of our walks through Home Depot, which feels like a second home now, I noticed the 6ft x 1ft boards in the unfinished wood section (by the shelving). One of the boards costs about $14.00. It was the perfect medium for what I had in mind…..

Related: DIY Batman Baby Mobile

SUPPLY LIST: 

1. Wooden Board
2. Dremel Tool Kit
3. Wooden Dowels
4. Wood Glue
5. Drill – we like this one
6. Flat Metal Brackets
7.  Wood Carving Kit
8. Wood Stain
9. Clamps
10. Wax

Hubby and I bought one of the boards and once home we (ahem, he) sawed it in half to get two 1ft x  3ft pieces.

I wanted a horizontal piece made of the 2 boards so we lined them up and marked them where we would place dowels.

Then we drilled the holes…

We filled them up with wood glue first…

Placed the dowel inside the hole…Then marked the tip with some acrylic paint….

Pressed it up against the other piece of wood to mark the center of where the new hole needed to be…

Then did the drilling all over again. We put wood glue along the edge, lined the holes with the dowels, slid them in and held the boards together until they dried.

The boards were ready the following day! We sanded along where the boards met and all around in order to give it the look that it was all one board.

Next we needed to draw the image. Unfortunately I don’t have pictures of this process but basically what I did was print out an image from the internet of the symbol I wanted onto a regular sheet of paper. I cut it out, set it on a clear piece of acrylic, placed it on the floor and sat a flashlight behind hit while hubby held up the board in front of it. The image shined onto the board and I traced out the image once I got it the right distance from the board to make it the perfect size. I really wish I had an overhead projector for this! But hey, it worked.

Next, I took my dremel tool and carved out the edges of the batman symbol. Then (my hubby actually did this part) carved out the inside of the bat…

Here is a close-up of that handy dandy tool.

Here is what it looked like once we were done with the carving.

Here is a close-up of the carved part. LOVE IT!

Next, it needed to be stained, but I read that the wood needed to be conditioned first so I made sure to do that. Then I started staining the inside of the symbol and did one coat over the entire thing (also doing the edges all around).  It looked nice with one coat, but I wanted it darker, so I did a second coat of stain.

You can see the difference between 1 and 2 coats above. After the stain was dry, we sealed it with clear wax.

It looked pretty friggin’ awesome! We added a little signature to the bottom right since we were so proud.

Then after we let it set, we installed a couple of flat brackets on the back to give the boards further support.

And in order to hang the board, we used a wire hanging system we had bought at Home Depot as well. You can get a large packet that will be enough for several hanging projects.

And that was how we did it! It was fairly inexpensive, but we had to get the carving tools and the dremel attachment, stain, conditioner and wax, but I think it was totally worth it since it ended up looking so cool. Plus now we have all those tools and we can do any other carvings that I might come up with….

Oh and I have a couple already brewing…

It was definitely a time consuming project with A LOT of steps, but in the end we made a completely unique piece of art that I am so totally proud of. It looked better than what I imagined it would look like and I think we were also able to accomplish making it look like one piece of solid wood too. I hope he enjoys this piece for many years to come.

Related: Nephew’s Nursery Before

Related: Nephew’s Nursery Reveal

Here is a last close-up.

Hope you guys liked this DIY Batman Carved Art!